SECTION CLXXIII.. History of the Wages of Common Labor.--in Flourishing Nations.

HISTORY OF THE WAGES OF COMMON LABOR.--IN FLOURISHING NATIONS.

A permanently[173-1] high rate of wages[173-2] is, both as cause and effect, very intimately connected with a flourishing condition of national life. It proves on the one hand, great productiveness of the public economy of the people generally: prudence, self-respect and self-control, even of the lowest classes, virtues, which, however, are found, on the whole, only where political liberty exists, and where the lowest classes are rightly valued by the higher.[173-3] On the other hand, it produces a condition of the great majority of that portion of the population who have to support themselves on the wages they receive, worthy of human beings, a condition in which they can educate their children, enjoy the present and provide for the future. Equality before the law and participation in the affairs of government are empty phrases, and even tend to inflame the passions, where the rate of wages is not high. When the lower classes are dissatisfied, in highly civilized countries, with the sensitiveness and mobility of the whole national life, there can be no certainty of the freedom of the middle classes or of the rule of the upper. Here, in other respects, also, the philanthropy of employers harmonizes remarkably well with their reasonable self-interest. According to § 40, only the well-paid workman can accomplish anything really good, just as, conversely, only the good workman is on the whole, and in the long run, well paid. This suggests the physiological law, that where muscular activity is great, nutrition must be great, likewise; and the rapid waste and repair of tissues strengthens the muscles and gives tone to the whole physical life. With a correct insight into the relations of things, antiquity described its greatest worker, Herakles, as a great eater also. A well-paid workman, who costs and accomplishes as much in a day as two bad ones, is cheaper than they. He works much more cheerfully and faithfully, is, hence, more easily superintended, is less frequently sick, and later decrepid.[173-4] His childhood costs less, and his burial is not so expensive. In cases of need, he can more easily bear the weight of taxation or a temporary lowering of wages.[173-5] We might say of the granting of holidays and of evening leisure something similar to what we have said of the rate of wages. They are indispensable requisites to the development of a desirable individuality in the working classes; and when used for that purpose are certainly no detriment to the product of labor or to employers.[173-6] [173-7]

In consideration of all the blessings attending a high rate of wages, we may well be induced to put up with a certain and frequently inconvenient external defiance of the lower classes which is wont to accompany it.[173-8] It teaches the upper classes many a moral lesson, and is surely a lesser sin in the lower, than the cowardly, malicious crimes of the oppressed. When wages are so low that they have to be supplemented by begging or public charity, the effect on morality is the same as when government officials, who cannot live on their salaries, resort to bribery or embezzlement.[173-9] [173-10]

Hence J. Möser, Patr. Ph., III, 40, desired, on this account, that work in the evening should be prohibited by law. In England, not only the moral necessity, but also the economic general utility of leisure time of workmen has been defended, among others by Postlethwayt, Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, I, prelim. Discourse, 1751. A beautiful law, V Moses 24, 15. Only, care must be taken not to go to the other extreme, which is still more detrimental to personality. The North American ideal of 8 hours a day for work, 8 for eating, sleeping, etc., and 8 for leisure, would be injurious except to workmen intellectually very active. But the provision to be met with in many states of the Union and in the arsenal employ of the government, that in case of doubt, the work day is to be tacitly assumed as of 8 hours, has, it is said, correspondingly lowered wages. See supra, § 168.]

Tax per capita of the population for In support of the poor. Leeds, 22--22-1/2s. 5s. 7d. Gloucester, 13--15-1/4s. 8s. 8d. Somerset, 16-3/4--19-3/4s. 8s. 9d. Wilts, 13-7/12--15-5/12s. 16s. 6d.

Ure, Philosophy of Manufactures, 476. After an enthusiastic eulogy of high wages, McCulloch remarks especially that the English poor rates cost more than if the laborers were obliged to provide for themselves by getting higher wages. (Principles, III, 7.) Sad results of the system which came into vogue in the South of England in 1795, to supplement wages according to the price of corn and the number of children. Previously the laboring classes married only after the age of 25 and even at 35, and not until they had saved from £40 to £50. After the above mentioned system was adopted, even minors married. (Edinburg Review, LIII, 4, 7.)]